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Extra Climate Benefits From Afforestation Due to Reduced Forest Fragmentation in China
Nan Meng1, Wei Li1,2, Philippe Ciais3
1Department of Earth System Science, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Institute For Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Advanced Science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany)
|June 15, 2026
Summary
Afforestation reduces forest fragmentation, creating interior forests. These transformed forests offer significant climate benefits beyond carbon sequestration, contributing an extra 6.6% to climate mitigation efforts.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Climate Science
- Remote Sensing
Background:
- Afforestation connects fragmented forests, reducing edge areas and creating interior forests.
- The additional climate benefits from reduced forest fragmentation (transformed forests) are not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantify the carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) sequestration (biogeochemical) and albedo changes (biophysical) in transformed forests in China.
- To assess the net climate impact of transformed forests resulting from afforestation.
Main Methods:
- Utilized multiple high-resolution remote-sensing datasets to analyze changes in forest cover and characteristics.
- Estimated CO2 sequestration from biomass increase and warming effect from albedo decrease in transformed forests.
Main Results:
- Over 1980-2015, 51.8 million hectares of edge forests were transformed into interior forests in China.
- Transformed forests showed a cumulative CO2e increase of 1.4±0.2 Pg CO2e due to reduced fragmentation, while planted forests sequestered 10.3±0.4 Pg CO2e.
- A biophysical warming effect of -0.9 Pg CO2e was observed in transformed forests, partially offsetting the cooling from biomass increase, resulting in a net gain of 0.5±0.2 Pg CO2e.
Conclusions:
- Transformed forests provide significant, previously underestimated climate benefits, contributing an extra 6.6±2.7% to the direct climate benefits of afforestation.
- Reducing forest fragmentation through afforestation offers a valuable strategy for climate change mitigation.
- This research highlights the importance of considering the impacts of forest landscape changes beyond simple area increase.
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